Database Develop

Nexus one screen: color and white shadow

Does anyone experience a "white shadow" problem on n1's screen?
when i read a document, i notice the margin area is not purely white, but there's "shadow" of text on the right
is this a amoled limitation of is it just me?
I will try to take photo if the explanation is not clear enough
another issue is that i've always found the n1's screen color to have a red hue
same for this, is it just me or do you have similar experiences?

Hey, no red hue but i do sometimes have a 'white shadow effect' which i notice looking at text, such as reading an email [not 100% sure if this is same problem as yours tho].
i was worried that this might be a problem with the screen but its just a fingerprint issue - all you need to do is wipe the screen!!
the finger prints left on the screen were what caused my white shadow, wipe the screen clean and all the text is evenly black.
magic

I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.

I have the odd ghost shadows when reading black text on a white background too.

boxmander said:
I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see this too. I just chalked it up to a byproduct of AMOLED screens or something. Doesn't really bother me and I don't really notice it that much either.

boxmander said:
I have also seen this phenomenon, specifically in the web browser when there is a white background with back text. It doesn't happen all the time, but its fairly visable when it does. Perhaps this is a defective amoled screen issue? Or maybe just amoled screen artifacts.... not sure. Anyone else seen this?
Also this isn't a fingerprint issue, happens on perfectly clean screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmm that's strange because i do sometimes have exactly the same problem and can see the problem disappear as i wipe the screen. From my limited knowledge about amoled screens it seems unlikely that the pixels could be experiencing some sort of 'come and go' problem such as this. If someone could put up a picture...

Well for the record this is a very minor issue, I like my N1 a lot, its hardly noticeable. However I am interested in investigating it, and attempting to take pictures of the effect was well, less then fruitful.
It turns out my digital camera doesn't take pictures up close that well, its actually pretty terrible. I was trying to get a screen shot app to try to capture it but the ones on the market are only for root users, and I haven't made the plunge into root, yet.

kiddyfurby said:
another issue is that i've always found the n1's screen color to have a red hue
same for this, is it just me or do you have similar experiences?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have this problem and it's very off-putting.
Does anyone know if it's theoretically possible to calibrate the screen à la a computer monitor to reduce this reddish casting? In greyscale photos all shades have a very noticeable pink tone (not photos taken by the phone's camera).

I'm giving this thread a kick, because I also experience this 'problem' of having (faint but clearly visible) ghost lines or 'white shadow' when viewing small text/objects (Nexus One), especially noticeable in the browser. The weird thing is, it completely disappears when switching to landscape mode. Turning the brightness down worsens the phenomenon.
It is also reported at Google's Android support, sadly I can't report the link because of my newbie restrictions I also found one report of the Desire having this problem.
I would ask felow Nexus owners if they want to turn down their brightness and report if they also see this ghosting in portrait view (i.e. when viewing an article on nytimes.com fully zoomed out), so we can conclude if this is an insoluble AMOLED related issue or an actual screen defect of your phone (RMA/waranty-issue).

I have the text ghost image on white background. I thought it was software issue, but since it disappears in landscape view that might mean its a limitation of the pentile sub pixel layout.

I think this should explain it. It's not really the AMOLED, but how the "pixels" are actually laid out.
arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/03/secrets-of-the-nexus-ones-screen-science-color-and-hacks.ars

I read that this issue doesn't occur in the old Dolphin browser. I don't have my phone with me right now. Can someone try it? I doubt it has anything to do with the pentile subpixel arrangement. I mean if the part of the screen is supposed to be white, the pixel should display white, not grey. Probably a software issue, IMO.

I just checked, shadows on both. It's a screen thing.

My bad. You weren't using the Dolphin HD browser, were you?

Thank for your replies I don't think it is the browser though, the same problem persists in Gmail, Adobe PDF Reader and Documents togo, I suggest you use one of these applications to look at small text on low brightness. It might be a little more noticeable in de browser, but looks like it isn't a pure software issue. Can you confirm this finding?
@voiceunebunu: yes, I've read that, but that article concentrates on text fuzziness etc. because of the PenTile arrangement, but does not mention this 'ghosting-like' effect.
Of course this isn't such a 'big deal': I would rather have my screen calibrated so it doesn't show up al reddish and get a better screen view in daylight, but hey, I knew about those problems before I bought the Nexus, but this one seams to be very sparsely documented on the internet.
This effect reminds me of the first, monochrome LCD-displays, which also had this problem (only 100x times worse), especially if they grew older.

Possible work around?
Hi everyone,
I've found a work around for this!
Cyanogen 6 has a feature called "Render effect" and basically, there are options to change what and how colours are displayed.
The last three "calibrated" seem to be for the Nexus specifically. I've used all three and the "calibrated" and "calibrated (cool)" are my favourite. Both slightly change the colour output.
There is a slight yellow tint over whites. For my screen the ghost lines are greatly reduced (it used to be visible with normal size text and exceptionally bad when zoomed out). Now its only slightly visible when zoomed out!
Hope that helps!

i9000 screen problem

Hi all,
Got the Galaxy S for a month, pretty happy with it. Yesterday, the brightness suddenly gone up. The worst part is the display lost the gradient scaling and it is replaced by colour bands!
Apps like the stock video player for example. Before the video is played, you can see the grey control bar at the bottom covers by a lot of colour bands. The colour of the movie is all washed out as if you were playing it in 8 bit colour mode. Where the same avi played okay before, crystal clear and colour was rich.
Same thing with the charging screen while the phone is off. You can see the colour bands on the grey area of the shadow of the green battery. Just wondering if anyone has the same problem?
Cheers!

Factory reset :d

Tried all that full factory wipe, data reset, flash to different rom. Nothing works

Then your device's probably faulty. replace it.

Pretty certain it is. I took a screenshot of the video player and it looks fine but on the screen, you can still see those colour bands meters away.
I guess this indicates the LCD is faulty.

romhunter said:
I guess this indicates the LCD is faulty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The galaxy s has no LCD its LED
Ive noticed when you slide down that tray from the top, when closing it mine has MANY TIMES switched to full brightness. But simply tapping the brightness button on the multi widget thingy makes it go back to how I want.

evil-doer said:
The galaxy s has no LCD its LED
Ive noticed when you slide down that tray from the top, when closing it mine has MANY TIMES switched to full brightness. But simply tapping the brightness button on the multi widget thingy makes it go back to how I want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats because you can adjust the brightness by sliding your finger accross the notification bar.... doesnt work if you have auto brightness ticked...

talboy said:
Thats because you can adjust the brightness by sliding your finger accross the notification bar.... doesnt work if you have auto brightness ticked...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have auto brightness ticked, sliding still works for me
Standard rom btw...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Hi I have the exact same problem! But I didn't notice it before now wen I saw this thread. But all the colours are just fine when I play a vid, it's just the grey controlbar that is by many stripes of different colours, looks like 8bit colour. But when the vid starts playing its just fine, because it gets transparent. Should I get this phone changed, have just had it a couple of weeks.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Hi Radat,
I posted more info in the other forum including some screenshots. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1520586
Hope yours okay. I am going to call Samsung tomorrow.

romhunter,
yup, saw the screenshots, looks like quantization problem i.e. that colours are using fewer bits than normal. For example, RGB screen might use 24 bits per pixel, 8 bits per r/g/b colour, the screenshots seem to suggest only 5 or 6 bits per colour.
Hopefully this is just a software glitch, though you said you already tried factory reset / wipe, could it be a loose cable wire somewhere or maybe a problem with the screen to mainboard connector?

talboy said:
Thats because you can adjust the brightness by sliding your finger accross the notification bar.... doesnt work if you have auto brightness ticked...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
awesome. theres so many little shortcuts like this ive yet to learn. thanks

On my sgs, there is a green colour attached to to the grey colours, I can see it really good when using Screen test app on the gray scale screen, all grey is sort of green!

romhunter said:
Hi all,
Got the Galaxy S for a month, pretty happy with it. Yesterday, the brightness suddenly gone up. The worst part is the display lost the gradient scaling and it is replaced by colour bands!
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got a brand new device. Used it for about an hour, then the exact same thing happened - out of the blue.
Any possible home-front solutions? Having to take it to be serviced is a PITA for me ATM.

Mine definitely seems to have banding in the video player control pane before the video playback starts. Can someone please post a screenshot of how it should be? I haven't seen the banding issue anywhere else except the battery charging indicator when charging the phone when it's turned off. And as far as I remember they were always like that.
So can someone please post a screenshot of how it should be for me to compare.

I have the same problem appeared after upgrading to Froyo. Brightness increased (even it is high in the lowest setting) and color saturation also increased. As a result, i see bandings or lines where a color gradient exist. I added an example photo from "Samsung Apps" page. You can easily see bandings on the bottom. I see such things in a PC screen if color adjustment is not optimum. So there must be a way to adjust screen saturation and brightness by a software through registry i think. It seems like a software problem. I think it is a very rare problem, i found few people on the web complaining about it. Mostly HTC Desire, which use also Samsung Amoled screen, users complaining about it.
I did everything said on forums to solve it but no way. I flashed many different roms both eclair and froyo, use a software given in HTC forums to change RGB color, changed color settings through video player etc. Nothing worked. Please help

victor79 said:
I have the same problem appeared after upgrading to Froyo. Brightness increased (even it is high in the lowest setting) and color saturation also increased. As a result, i see bandings or lines where a color gradient exist. I added an example photo from "Samsung Apps" page. You can easily see bandings on the bottom. I see such things in a PC screen if color adjustment is not optimum. So there must be a way to adjust screen saturation and brightness by a software through registry i think. It seems like a software problem. I think it is a very rare problem, i found few people on the web complaining about it. Mostly HTC Desire, which use also Samsung Amoled screen, users complaining about it.
I did everything said on forums to solve it but no way. I flashed many different roms both eclair and froyo, use a software given in HTC forums to change RGB color, changed color settings through video player etc. Nothing worked. Please help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I looked at ur pic. I honestly dont see any problem with it. What is this banding ur talking about?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Bottom of the screen, around "2010 Samsungs Electronics". This part should be a smooth color transition from blue to transparent but there are circular lines between colors. Is your screen the same.

Another example. The one on the phone looks white on the upper part where a color transition from dark to light black exist and there are visible lines. But normally it was looking like the other picture (taken from notebook screen) before this problem

ah on that screen i already see 8 shades of blue, most be around 4k colors .. bummer though, it's normally a software problem, doubt that a conector has come loose. (but possible if it's a pimped up composite plug with Y/Pr/Pb, .. eh still impossible cos it's getting decoded before that)

[Q] Faulty screen?

I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?

Jac_83 said:
I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to do a screen test. Type in the phone (*#0*#)

okey, what am I looking for in the screentest, I have done that before, as I recall there are just at series of color test, the pattern im speaking of is on the whole screen, almost as if it was low resolution or something, I saw some information on a thread about this, but I cant find it anymore.

Bring it to a service center/phone shop, compare it to whatever display models they have? If you see a difference, you can turn it in on the spot

Jac_83 said:
okey, what am I looking for in the screentest, I have done that before, as I recall there are just at series of color test, the pattern im speaking of is on the whole screen, almost as if it was low resolution or something, I saw some information on a thread about this, but I cant find it anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you do a pic of it?...

Jac_83 said:
I have a question about the screen on the SGS, i just got one and when i look closely on the screen I see small dots. Kind of like a chessboard feeling, I noted it first when I looked closely at the "Application" ikon in the bottom right corner. The four white fields look almost like small chessboards except that the "black" squares are more grayish and not black as in a real chessboard .
I'm wondering if my screen is somehow faulty or if it is supposed to look like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's called the pentile effect. Just google pentile. Its how it is there is nothing you can be about it, although from a normal distace you can't see it. Its most visible on gray i think.

bcam117 said:
That's called the pentile effect. Just google pentile. Its how it is there is nothing you can be about it, although from a normal distace you can't see it. Its most visible on gray i think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Listen to this guy.
Samsung used a pentile matrix (one pixel now consists of 5 sub pixels - 2 small red, 2 small green and 1 large blue) for some strange reason. I'm only taking a guess here but I figure it has something to do with the way OLED screens degrade. Blue degrades the fastest so I guess it makes sense to have it the largest as it will then have more "say" in the colors that are made. This is the same reason people complain that their screen is blue when it's supposed to be white. It is this same layout that makes the grid pattern and text harder to read than retina displays.

Thank you for the information, I was worried that i had some "resolution" issue. And true enough at normal distance it's no issue. I only noticed it while comparing some stuff to a friends iPhone4.
I have a buddy with a SGS, gonna compare to his "just in case".
I've heard people talk about dithering so I thought I might as well ask, for example while starting the samsung app the blueish background image is indeed dithered on my device, is that normal? Also when playing a video (stock player) the menu where you can scroll consist of lines of gray instead of being smoothly gradient.

i have this gradient issue either. there are steps in color gradient, is this normal??
for example when u look at the grey parts of the battery when ure charging the phone while it's off. or the samsung apps loading screen. and many more...

[Q] Distortion of words / writing while scrolling???

Hi,
I have just purchased an HD7 and I really like it so far but I have a question regarding some screen distortion I am seeing when I scroll through menu's, apps, etc...
For example (and where it is most noticable although it does happen in other areas as well) when I go to the applications menu (where all apps are located to the right of the Windows screen) and I scroll through the apps from top to bottom, all the writing beside each app icon becomes so distorted while scrolling (almost static like) that you cannot even make out what the words are saying until the scrolling stops and then everything is ledgable again. Is this normal?
On my Galaxy S the scrolling does not affect the font / writing this way at all and even on my old Omnia i910 I dont remember seeing this type of distortion when scrolling.
If someone can please advise me on this I would really appreciate it. Is this normal for this device? Does yours do it? Anyway to fix it?
Thanks
yiannisthegreek

It's normal behaviour but I'm not sure of the cause. From what I've seen, this only happens when using the black theme. If you use the white theme it doesn't happen.

Shadowise said:
It's normal behaviour but I'm not sure of the cause. From what I've seen, this only happens when using the black theme. If you use the white theme it doesn't happen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank You for the reply. Really? Hmmm... That is odd. I wonder if this will be something that will be fixed in updates perhaps?

I use a black theme and this doesn't happen to me at all. Certainly not to the point it's unreadable.

jimbonics said:
I use a black theme and this doesn't happen to me at all. Certainly not to the point it's unreadable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... Now Im confused... One person says it happens to him and one says it does not.
Do you experience any distortion of the writing in apps, etc while scrolling? It is minimal when I scroll slowly but when I scroll fast it is quite noticable.
PS... I did also try the white theme and it does not do it in the white theme as was mentioned by the other poster... Only in the Black theme.

I guess I'm not sure what the deal is. When I'm scrolling fast, it could be a million dollar screen with perfect clarity and I STILL wouldn't be able to "read" what was there. I mean, I have 20-20 vision and am a pretty quick reader and I can barely read my chat log scrolling slowly. When scrolling fast enough to "distort" you would have to be able to read about 120 words per second (I scroll through three screens worth of text in less than a second, about 40 words per screen). That's 7200 words per minute which is darn near World Record Speed Reading (not counting those who skim most of it and lose a great deal of comprehension).

I'd just like to say that it's not a major issue for me, but it does happen. When scrolling the app list, the text does fade out, but I don't really see it as much of an issue as the items are moving so fast that you wouldn't be able to read the text at any rate. As the list is alphabetical, I know where I need to stop, I'm not reading the apps one by one as I go along.
I'm not sure now if the OP is experiencing a different issue but he did confirm, as I have, that it doesn't happen in the white theme.

Shadowise said:
I'd just like to say that it's not a major issue for me, but it does happen. When scrolling the app list, the text does fade out, but I don't really see it as much of an issue as the items are moving so fast that you wouldn't be able to read the text at any rate. As the list is alphabetical, I know where I need to stop, I'm not reading the apps one by one as I go along.
I'm not sure now if the OP is experiencing a different issue but he did confirm, as I have, that it doesn't happen in the white theme.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Shadowise,
Yes... This is what I am talking about and again Thank You for your answers. I also really notice this when using the People Live Tile and especially in the synced Facebook listing. The text DOES fade out and the smaller the text the more faded it seems to become. Again... This is in the Black theme.
Also, I have noticed while in the People "hub" when scrolling from side to side that the screen itself darkens / dims out while scrolling and it also DOES this in the White theme as well. Is this also normal behavior?
If your not sure what I am talking about then please go into the People tile and just hold your finger on the top of the screen (where it says people in big letters) and slowly slide your finger and you will see the screen darken / dim out as it scrolls - unless there is something wrong with MY device in which case you may not notice what I am talking about.
Please let me know if this happens to you and if this is normal as well. Again... my Android does NOT do these things and so I am not sure if this is normal behavior.
Thanks in advance...
yiannisthegreek

My screen absolutely does not do this. The people tile actualy looks sharper than the apps screen, regardless of how fast I scroll. The screen does not dim out _at all_.
Black background.

It happens over here as well this is due to Motion Blur, the quality of screen used by HTC is poor and this is a known issue with the HTC HD7 and HTC Surround. HTC should have used a better screen specially for its flagship device on the Windows phone 7 platform. But i guess thats the main reason they didn't; the platform is new theres no need to increase costs for a niche emerging market.

Ok... I am confused again... One answer says that this absolutely DOES NOT happen to him and another answer says that it DOES... LOL!!!

This happens because of the 4.3" screen. It's not the best screen in the world. The 4.1" dell venue pro screen never exhibited this behavior and when I switched to the hd7 I noticed it immediately.

It's called response time, it's not fast enough as some other screen, basically it's more prominent while using black theme because it takes full response time (i.e. 8ms) for a pixel to change it colour from black to white and then to black again while you scrolling.

microhaxo said:
This happens because of the 4.3" screen. It's not the best screen in the world. The 4.1" dell venue pro screen never exhibited this behavior and when I switched to the hd7 I noticed it immediately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The funny thing is that the more I play with it the more I notice that this only really happens within the stock Microsoft OS apps like People, Zune, etc. When I scroll through other 3rd party apps such as Facebook (actual app and not the synced version in the People tab), FIM (Facebook Instant Messenger), among other 3rd party apps that this fade out / distortion does not take place.
Anyone else find the same?
EDIT... I have confirmed the fade out / screen distortion to again seemingly only to be affecting the Microsoft stock OS apps again after going into Marketplace, Office, (along with the others mentioned above). It does not seem to affect 3rd party apps... Facebook, FIM, Yellowpages, YouTube, etc.
Again... Anyone else find the same or can check?

jimbonics said:
My screen absolutely does not do this. The people tile actualy looks sharper than the apps screen, regardless of how fast I scroll. The screen does not dim out _at all_.
Black background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We're not talking about the whole screen, just the text.

Shadowise said:
We're not talking about the whole screen, just the text.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually... I am talking about like 3/4 of the entire screen when scrolling from side to side in any Microsoft stock OS App.
Like I said in my previous post... if you go into say the People live tile and place your finger on the top portion of the screen where in big writing it says "people" and just slowly start to move your finger to scroll you will see the bottom half of the entire page / app dim out until you remove your finger or it completes its scroll.
As I said... it does this on my device in EVERY Microsoft STOCK OS app like People, Zune, Marketplace, XBOX Live, etc but in 3rd party apps it does NOT do this. This happens in WHITE theme as well.
To try and reproduce this please go to any Microsoft OS App like "people", press your finger at the top of the page and move your finger side to side in short movements and watch your screen. You should see the dimming effect unless my phone is defective or something.
Please tell me what you find.

i'm pretty sure this is not a bug or an issue, it's just intentional, and it's 100% a software thing, you can see that in many wp7 reviews...
but a different thing is the effect you see scrolling the applist, that one is related to the hd7 screen and you won't see it using, for example, an omnia7

elmerendeiro said:
i'm pretty sure this is not a bug or an issue, it's just intentional, and it's 100% a software thing, you can see that in many wp7 reviews...
but a different thing is the effect you see scrolling the applist, that one is related to the hd7 screen and you won't see it using, for example, an omnia7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have an HD7? Can you confirm if your screen does the same "dim / fade out" thing in the Microsoft apps as I have described? Also... Why does it not do this in 3rd party apps then like youtube for example? I have even checked the HTC Hub app and in the HTC app store it does not fade / dim out but it sure does in the Microsoft Marketplace app. Weird.
As for the thing you mention about the app list and the screen - well that is my first big dissapointment with this phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S and of course the SAMOLED is AWESOME but this phone is said to have the S-LCD (Super LCD) display which is supposed to be a pretty good screen too.

Well... I found a youtube link regarding the BLACK theme scrolling words distortion. Here it is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RperdOR8y5g
But I have not found anything about the screen fade/dimming in Microsoft apps so I hope one of you out here can reproduce it and tell me my phone is ok (even though it will still kinda suck)... LOL!!!

djpianz said:
It's called response time, it's not fast enough as some other screen, basically it's more prominent while using black theme because it takes full response time (i.e. 8ms) for a pixel to change it colour from black to white and then to black again while you scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is the full reason why ^

Possible fix for poor screen uniformity (pink/yellow tint)

I only say possible, as it doesn't work completely with the note 4.
Basically, someone who goes by 'aaah' on the OnePlus forums made an excellent app that let's you add a gradient anywhere on the screen that can even out any tinting etc. It worked very well, but obviously doesn't make up for the loss of brightness as OPO uses LCD screens
With our note 4s however, there is no brightness shift, so we can compensate with a different colour where it changes.
Unfortunately the app, at least on my exynos note 4, doesn't allow you to properly change transparency when a gradient is applied. It works fine for a solid block, but that isn't ideal as the pink patches aren't solid but instead fade gradually. Hence why a gradient would be great for it.
If any android wiz kids out there could possibly patch the apk so that the transparency settings work then it would certainly help lessen the degree at which the colour shifts are noticeable.
For mine, its mainly the bottom right where the pink patch is more prominent. So I will always have a left to right shift around the keyboard area no matter what, but it would at least reduce the top to bottom shift.
Original link to the screen filter app: https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/screen-filter-rewritten-yellow-band-software-fix.141167/